Three weeks tagging with the SAMARCH project – August & September 2019

By Joe Fell

The three weeks I spent on the River Frome tagging thousands of juvenile salmon and trout was a completely new experience for me, and one that I learned a lot from. As an environmental science student from BU, this short summer placement was a fantastic opportunity, made even more so as electro-fishing was something I had never done before; being involved in teams with vast amounts of experience was a great learning experience.

These three weeks certainly acted as an encouragement to partake in projects like this again, getting an insight into how such research teams operate will give me the key details applicable to similar organisations.

A target of 13,000 salmon and trout for tagging seemed like a considerable goal at first, but we soon progressed well, having productive days of several hundred fish at times. Although some days would be quite the opposite, it gave me an understanding of the optimal river characteristics for salmon and trout to thrive, as well as ideal spawning areas.

Three weeks tagging with the SAMARCH project – August & September 2019